Democratic Kampuchea

Democratic Kampuchea was the name given to the Khmer Rouge-controlled regime of Cambodia that ruled from from 17 April 1975 to 7 January 1979 after the Cambodian Civil War and before the Cambodian-Vietnamese War. Founded after the Fall of Phnom Penh to Pol Pot's communist forces, Democratic Kampuchea was a totalitarian communist state that murdered the intelligentsia and political opposition of Cambodia to consolidate Pol Pot's leadership. The "Cambodian Genocide" and the abolition of currency led to the Cambodian people being poor and poorly-educated, reducing Cambodia to a Third World country. The country was invaded in 1979 by Vietnam and replaced by the People's Republic of Kampuchea, a group of Khmer Rouge dissidents.